Friend of mine ordered a Dell with a comprehensive on site service warranty. The laptop arrived, he installed a game, started playing, frame rate dropped, machine shutdown. He did this about 3 times then said screw it and called Dell. They sent out a technician the same day, the guy replaced the video card, it never happened again.
I was thinking the other day, one of the basic things that is missing from a MMORPG that you get with a tabletop RPG is personal touch of a dedicated Game Master. I can remember playing MUDs where I actually had the freedom to change the world because a GM was there to review what I had done and keep things "in check". This is taken to the obvious extreme with tabletop RPGs where you can do anything after negotiating with the GM. Of course, in a MMORPG there's just way too many other players for you to have a relationship with a GM. In fact, it's almost always company policy that GMs remain out of the game, otherwise everyone will want access to them. Personally, I think that's the wrong way to go. Instead of hiding the GMs the company should be offering their interaction for a fee. To really do this well the development team needs to supply the GM with simple but powerful scripting tools. I'd imagine a conversation might go something like this:
Player: My enchantment resistance is low and I keep losing rolls against Paladins, what can I do? GM: Well, you could go see the Enchantrist, she can probably supply you with some boots that will boost your enchantment resistance. Player: Where's the Enchantrist? GM: Heh! I can't tell you that. But if you ask at the bar in town you're bound to find someone who can. Player: alright then!
The player then runs off in the direction of town. Meanwhile the GM starts writing a script for one of the bar characters which responds to the keyword 'Enchantrist'. If he gets writers block halfway through writing the list of challenges the player is going to have to face to meet the Enchantrist he can always send some ghouls to intercept the player and delay his arrival at the bar.
Eventually the player gets to the bar and asks around for the Enchantrist. The character planted there by the GM gives the player the instructions and the player sets off on his quest. The quest may have been a pre-existing one or the GM may have coded it up just now. With a library of sufficient content and a simple scripting language, it should be easy for a GM to give the illusion of an exciting dynamic world.
Yep, it's distant future technology.. but it is within the laws of physics.. you don't need new physics to do it and you don't need magical things like "inertial dampeners". Mr Fusion will provide all the power you need.
It's hardly a waste of fuel. If you did what the grandparent post suggested you'd get to Mars in less than 48 hours. It'd be great if we could do that, but we can't. The question is, though, how much acceleration do you need to maintain body mass?
No, but it would make for an interesting plotline to a sci-fi movie where you already knew all the characters and had been waiting years to find out what the hell it was all about.
The current path that scientists are taking to create artificial vision is based on the observation a blind person can be made to see light by stimulating the nerve ganglia behind the retina with an electrical current. The nerves behind the retina still function even when the retina has degenerated.
Note that this is not the same as artificial hearing, where a cochlear implant actually replaces the first few layers of sound processing in the brain. So if the hope is to ever have direct visual input to the brain, we can forget about treatments for the blind. Scientists will be tied up making artificial eyes that interface with the nerve ganglia instead of decoding the image processing pathways in the brain.. meaning the most we can ever hope for is an eletronic eye that can do argumented reality.. i.e., you might as well wear contact lenses with transparent displays in them.
As for research that doesn't focus on the disabled.. well, that's not very fashionable. Inserting electronics into the brains of healthy people is still considered taboo.
Re:Source of creation, or evolution?
on
The Los Alamos Bug
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Ok, then obviously talking about cells isn't going to get us anywhere. So let's talk about the analogy that ID makes: the mouse trap.
The modern mouse trap has four parts. A base, a spring, a crushing wire and a trigger lever. If you take away any of the parts it doesn't work. The ID argument is that it must have been designed as any small change that removed one of these critical components would render the mouse trap ineffective.
This is a powerful argument, and it is what gets most people suckered into ID. Not because it is a good argument, but simply because you believe the mouse trap was intelligently designed and by drawing analogies to structures seen in nature you fall into the same kind of thinking.
There's one more thing most people are ignorant of that makes the argument powerful: how the modern mouse trap came about. People largely think the modern mouse trap came into the world fully formed without any evolution. Much like Edison's light bulbs, however, the mouse trap actually did evolve. The addition and removal of superfluous parts continues to this day. Designs compete much like genetic variations and the market selects which designs are improved upon.
To suggest that a flagellum or ATP-syntase must have been intelligently designed because it is irreducibly complex is to ask us to believe that no superfluous parts could possibly have been removed from the currently "perfect" design and that the parts which make up the current design could not have served any other purpose (even though I've just mentioned two biochemical systems which have similar components).
peptide nucleic acid apparently. See also this page. Hopefully this research will at least develop new techniques for handling and monitoring chemical systems. As for the religious implications, *yawn*.
Re:RNA is thought to be able to do this.
on
The Los Alamos Bug
·
· Score: 1
Ahh the Drake Equation. Tell me, is it fair to call a star surrounded by a Dyson sphere 'dark matter'? You can't see it.. What's the current estimate for how much of the universe is made up of dark matter? 23% or something right? Hmmm. That's an aweful lot of Mind.
Bah, even when we hang out with people who are not from either of our workplaces they rant on about other people. The other alternative is discussions about movies or tv.. which is slightly more tolerable. To be normal is to have no passion. It is to be unable to transcend the trivialities of daily life.
Ya know what.. when I hang around with my fiancee and her friends, all they talk about all night is work. And not the technical workflow details.. they spend all night talking about the people at their work. Someone will say a name, someone else will say their opinion of that person, someone else will counter with an anecdote about that person, etc. Basically it's nothing more than gossip. The other alternative is a discussion about religion or politics in which someone will inevitably take someone elses' opinions personally, get all flustered and maybe break down crying. If this is what "normal people" talk about I think I'd rather hang out with geeks.. at least we can have a conversation without backstabbing other people or thinking others are personally attacking us when they express their opinions.
Yeah yeah, but the DARPA programs that began in the 60s were a deliberate attempt to realign US education onto a science and technology footing.. before then kids were more than likely to go into sales or farm work.
Uh huh. If I recall correctly, the 1960s was when the US realised that snubbing science was making them a sitting duck for the russians and began the great brain trust policy. Remember Sputnik?
Yeah, boohoo. If we could make artificial cows to make milk we would. Of course then you'd have people bitching that the milk wasn't "natural", as if any milk bought from a supermarket has ever qualified to be called such.
Slashdot Mirror
If the customer is paying $25/hr for a personal GM, who cares!
Friend of mine ordered a Dell with a comprehensive on site service warranty. The laptop arrived, he installed a game, started playing, frame rate dropped, machine shutdown. He did this about 3 times then said screw it and called Dell. They sent out a technician the same day, the guy replaced the video card, it never happened again.
I was thinking the other day, one of the basic things that is missing from a MMORPG that you get with a tabletop RPG is personal touch of a dedicated Game Master. I can remember playing MUDs where I actually had the freedom to change the world because a GM was there to review what I had done and keep things "in check". This is taken to the obvious extreme with tabletop RPGs where you can do anything after negotiating with the GM. Of course, in a MMORPG there's just way too many other players for you to have a relationship with a GM. In fact, it's almost always company policy that GMs remain out of the game, otherwise everyone will want access to them. Personally, I think that's the wrong way to go. Instead of hiding the GMs the company should be offering their interaction for a fee. To really do this well the development team needs to supply the GM with simple but powerful scripting tools. I'd imagine a conversation might go something like this:
Player: My enchantment resistance is low and I keep losing rolls against Paladins, what can I do?
GM: Well, you could go see the Enchantrist, she can probably supply you with some boots that will boost your enchantment resistance.
Player: Where's the Enchantrist?
GM: Heh! I can't tell you that. But if you ask at the bar in town you're bound to find someone who can.
Player: alright then!
The player then runs off in the direction of town. Meanwhile the GM starts writing a script for one of the bar characters which responds to the keyword 'Enchantrist'. If he gets writers block halfway through writing the list of challenges the player is going to have to face to meet the Enchantrist he can always send some ghouls to intercept the player and delay his arrival at the bar.
Eventually the player gets to the bar and asks around for the Enchantrist. The character planted there by the GM gives the player the instructions and the player sets off on his quest. The quest may have been a pre-existing one or the GM may have coded it up just now. With a library of sufficient content and a simple scripting language, it should be easy for a GM to give the illusion of an exciting dynamic world.
Yep, it's distant future technology.. but it is within the laws of physics.. you don't need new physics to do it and you don't need magical things like "inertial dampeners". Mr Fusion will provide all the power you need.
Use more energy rich fuels than chemical rockets (eg, nuclear) and build in orbit for god sake.
Exercise is not enough. You need to at least have a spinning sleeping quarters.
It's hardly a waste of fuel. If you did what the grandparent post suggested you'd get to Mars in less than 48 hours. It'd be great if we could do that, but we can't. The question is, though, how much acceleration do you need to maintain body mass?
The whole point of a Dyson sphere is to absorb all that energy for [random project enjoyed by superbeings].
could we really build real better people?
No, but it would make for an interesting plotline to a sci-fi movie where you already knew all the characters and had been waiting years to find out what the hell it was all about.
The current path that scientists are taking to create artificial vision is based on the observation a blind person can be made to see light by stimulating the nerve ganglia behind the retina with an electrical current. The nerves behind the retina still function even when the retina has degenerated.
Note that this is not the same as artificial hearing, where a cochlear implant actually replaces the first few layers of sound processing in the brain. So if the hope is to ever have direct visual input to the brain, we can forget about treatments for the blind. Scientists will be tied up making artificial eyes that interface with the nerve ganglia instead of decoding the image processing pathways in the brain.. meaning the most we can ever hope for is an eletronic eye that can do argumented reality.. i.e., you might as well wear contact lenses with transparent displays in them.
As for research that doesn't focus on the disabled.. well, that's not very fashionable. Inserting electronics into the brains of healthy people is still considered taboo.
Ok, then obviously talking about cells isn't going to get us anywhere. So let's talk about the analogy that ID makes: the mouse trap.
The modern mouse trap has four parts. A base, a spring, a crushing wire and a trigger lever. If you take away any of the parts it doesn't work. The ID argument is that it must have been designed as any small change that removed one of these critical components would render the mouse trap ineffective.
This is a powerful argument, and it is what gets most people suckered into ID. Not because it is a good argument, but simply because you believe the mouse trap was intelligently designed and by drawing analogies to structures seen in nature you fall into the same kind of thinking.
There's one more thing most people are ignorant of that makes the argument powerful: how the modern mouse trap came about. People largely think the modern mouse trap came into the world fully formed without any evolution. Much like Edison's light bulbs, however, the mouse trap actually did evolve. The addition and removal of superfluous parts continues to this day. Designs compete much like genetic variations and the market selects which designs are improved upon.
To suggest that a flagellum or ATP-syntase must have been intelligently designed because it is irreducibly complex is to ask us to believe that no superfluous parts could possibly have been removed from the currently "perfect" design and that the parts which make up the current design could not have served any other purpose (even though I've just mentioned two biochemical systems which have similar components).
peptide nucleic acid apparently. See also this page. Hopefully this research will at least develop new techniques for handling and monitoring chemical systems. As for the religious implications, *yawn*.
Great. RTFA.
Ahh the Drake Equation. Tell me, is it fair to call a star surrounded by a Dyson sphere 'dark matter'? You can't see it.. What's the current estimate for how much of the universe is made up of dark matter? 23% or something right? Hmmm. That's an aweful lot of Mind.
$15,000/kg to the lunar surface. How much do you weigh?
That's what all dark matter is.. Mind.
Bah, even when we hang out with people who are not from either of our workplaces they rant on about other people. The other alternative is discussions about movies or tv.. which is slightly more tolerable. To be normal is to have no passion. It is to be unable to transcend the trivialities of daily life.
No-one to kill on the Moon though.. no wonder the US has taken so long to show an interest.
unable is the wrong word.. it's just so fuckin' boring.
Ya know what.. when I hang around with my fiancee and her friends, all they talk about all night is work. And not the technical workflow details.. they spend all night talking about the people at their work. Someone will say a name, someone else will say their opinion of that person, someone else will counter with an anecdote about that person, etc. Basically it's nothing more than gossip. The other alternative is a discussion about religion or politics in which someone will inevitably take someone elses' opinions personally, get all flustered and maybe break down crying. If this is what "normal people" talk about I think I'd rather hang out with geeks.. at least we can have a conversation without backstabbing other people or thinking others are personally attacking us when they express their opinions.
Yeah yeah, but the DARPA programs that began in the 60s were a deliberate attempt to realign US education onto a science and technology footing.. before then kids were more than likely to go into sales or farm work.
Uh huh. If I recall correctly, the 1960s was when the US realised that snubbing science was making them a sitting duck for the russians and began the great brain trust policy. Remember Sputnik?
To summarise: Nuke The Whales.
Yeah, boohoo. If we could make artificial cows to make milk we would. Of course then you'd have people bitching that the milk wasn't "natural", as if any milk bought from a supermarket has ever qualified to be called such.
Around now I'm going to ask you if you're an American as you clearly don't have a sense of humour. Lighten up jerk.
will be giving away said media player pre-installed
Not in Europe he wont.